It was an offshoot of Encore, a premium service geared towards old movies, that launched in 1994. At some point afterward, it switched places with Encore and became the primary brand of that group of channels - it was originally "Encore 8" but not after a while (Encore dropped the numbering in 1998 or so, but pieces of Starz!'s original 1994 presentation referencing it would last until 2002)